Liquid Cooling Arrives To Smartphones – NEC Medias X

Posted by Nathan Kirsch| Tue, May 21, 2013 - 2:42 PM

I remember when water cooling your PC was considered foolish and was something only die hard enthusiasts would do to get the most from their desktop PC. Those days are long gone as closed loop water cooling kits have become the norm over the past decade. While water cooled desktop computers is fairly common, it is most certainly not common on smartphones. That might all be changing as the NEC Medias X is officially the first smartphone to feature a liquid-cooled system from the factory. Don’t get too excited as the phone is only expected to be available in Japan.

The NEC Medias X 06E features a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor at 1.7GHZ and it appears that that a graphite radiator is needed to help disperse the heat. The odd thing is that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 is rated to run at up to 1.9GHz, so why would it need a form of liquid cooling at just 1.7GHz? Maybe this is a slick marketing gimmick, but time will tell.

How does liquid cooling work in a smartphone? It looks like the water-cooling is done by a liquid filled tube directing heat away from the processor of the NEC Medias X 06E. The pipe is next to the circuit board and this helps disperse the heat across the entire device. This sounds more like a heat-pipe more than a liquid cooler, but a water cooled smartphone has a nice ring to it.